There are about 450K people in the United States offering financial guidance to consumers. Roughly 90% of them are salespeople and 10% are registered investment advisers who adhere to the fiduciary standard (requiring them to act in investors’ best interests). Source

The average mutual fund investor’s return was about 40 percent lower than the stock market’s overall return from 1983 to 2011. Yet research shows that roughly 80 percent of shareholders are confident in their mutual funds’ ability to help them achieve their financial goals.

Dodd-Frank officially granted US shareholders the opportunity to hold an advisory vote on executive pay packages in 2012. To date 1,750 Russell 3000 companies have held their Say on Pay votes and 93% have passed with above 70% support. Source

According to the Department of Labor, a 1 percent difference in fees and expenses can reduce an account balance by up to 28 percent over thirty-five years (assuming an average return of 7 percent). On a $25,000 investment, it’s a forfeiture of $64,000. Source